Marketing Profs

Sometimes I think that we're going to sophisticate ourselves to death. We get so convoluted in our embrace of techniques and technology, we forget about the basics.

Let's all refresh and recharge, focusing on these five keys to direct marketing success:

1. Build advocates

Advocates are your very best customers. They not only buy from you very heavily but also sell for you by touting your product or service to business colleagues, friends and neighbors.

The objective of any direct marketing effort is not just to get a response or make a sale. It is to build customers. Direct marketing can be used at any stage—separating suspects from prospects, moving prospects to trial, converting one-time buyers to multiple-time buyers, and getting multi-buyers to become advocates.

Not everyone will become an advocate. Direct marketing helps you leverage the 80/20 rule (80% of your business will come from 20% of your customers). It allows you to identify the 20%, reward them to retain them and then clone them.

2. Select the right media

Direct mail is not always the right response medium to use, nor is the Internet. It depends entirely on the profile of your customers/prospects and on the nature of your product.

For example, if you are marketing a truly broad-based product, direct mail will probably not be the way to go. It is too expensive on a per-thousand basis and takes too long to execute. Television will be probably be a better route. Once you have created and produced the spot, the cost of buying television can be as low as $10 per thousand. About the best you can do with direct mail is $300 per thousand.

For niche or micro-markets, however, television normally isn't the best route. For targeting, what works best are direct mail, the telephone and print advertising. If you're selling a product for boat owners, you could rent any one of a number of lists, mail a package and then follow up with a phone call, or you could place an ad in a boat-owner magazine.